


One Step Forward (Two Steps Back)

by thisbluespirit



Category: Jonathan Creek (TV)
Genre: F/M, Humor, Magic, Non-Linear Narrative, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-04
Updated: 2020-03-04
Packaged: 2021-02-23 15:23:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23013628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisbluespirit/pseuds/thisbluespirit
Summary: Maddy’s got a problem so unusual even Jonathan can’t solve it for her.  In fact, she's having serious trouble just getting him to believe it...
Relationships: Jonathan Creek/Maddy Magellan
Comments: 18
Kudos: 18
Collections: New Year's Resolutions 2020





	One Step Forward (Two Steps Back)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [enchantedsleeper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/enchantedsleeper/gifts).



> For enchantedsleeper - this is your assigned Yule-author finally reporting for duty! I had a ball coming up with this for you originally, but real life stepped in and preventing me getting it finished and polished up in time for Yuletide. Now it is - I hope that you enjoy it.
> 
> With thanks to Persiflage for the beta. <3

_1999_

It was one of those aggressively twee magic shops, the sort that spelt their name magyck shoppe, with outer décor in faux Elizabethan beams and plaster. Maddy Magellan would have avoided it like the plague as a rule, but she was on the hunt for a birthday present for an awkward sod of a real life magician’s assistant, and you never knew when a place like this might turn up trumps in the obscure card tricks and Maskelyne memorabilia department.

It was even worse inside, stuffed full of junk that no one in their right mind would want to buy, not even Jonathan. Maddy had trouble just turning in the aisle to get back out the door again, having to stop and detach various bundles of dried herbs from her hair in the process, wrinkling her nose in an effort not to sneeze. If she did that in here, she was afraid the whole precarious shelf-load beside her might come down on her head.

It was possible that something small might have fallen into her coat pocket, but at that moment, her mobile rang and she dropped everything in the hunt to find and answer it, before gathering herself up again, glaring at a passer-by who’d had the indecency to fall over her shopping bag, and moving on, phone pressed to her ear, as she talked to Barry about the progress of her latest book.

It was also possible that the twee magic shop might have vanished as she exited, leaving behind it only an ordinary bricked up, white-painted house and a distinct aura of smugness.

Maddy moved on, oblivious.

* * *

_1977_

The clouds covered the moon and the wind whispered among the long grass around the windmill in its lonely Sussex spot. Inside the windmill, wooden joints creaked and groaned, almost obscuring the sound of Jonathan Creek’s parents’ voices from the floor below.

Jonathan closed his eyes and settled more comfortably into the bed, pulling the covers in close around him.

From outside came a sudden and terrible shrieking, audible even over the gale:

“Jonathan!” yelled the voice. “You bastard! Let me in right now!”

Jonathan sat straight up in bed.

“Jonathan!” howled the unearthly voice.

He decided the best course of action was to put the duvet right over his head and hope it would go away.

* * *

_1999_

“That’s amazing,” said Jonathan on examining Maddy’s dress. Which was a first for a start. Jonathan never noticed anything she wore, not unless there was something drastically wrong with it. Shame it wasn’t actually on her, of course, but it had to count for something, didn’t it?

Jonathan rubbed the fabric between thumb and forefinger. “There’s not a single artificial fibre in it. Where did you say you got it?”

“The 1480s,” said Maddy. “Not sure exactly what year, because I was in the middle of some village that’s one day going to be part of London and there wasn’t much happening. At least, not until I turned up and tried asking what year it was. Not a question that goes down well, I’ve found. Anyway, it was crap, but I can attest that none of them had heard of nylon.”

Jonathan frowned over the dress, his nose practically up against it. “Hmm,” he said, and then straightened up, finally looking at her instead of the historical garment. “What did you say?”

“That I was halfway across the street to my flat when – wham! – no street, no flat, and a lot of villagers who think I’m a witch and who don’t like my jeans. I’ve left my favourite top in the fifteenth century and I’m not going to get that back, am I? It won’t even last long enough to confuse the archaeologists.”

“What are you going on about?”

“My top,” said Maddy. “I mean, couldn’t it have been yesterday, when I was wearing the one with the ketchup stains?”

Jonathan wrinkled his forehead in distaste. “Don’t you ever do your laundry properly?” He looked up. “Anyway, I will go so far as to admit that this is a remarkably accurate replica of clothing from the period. Where d’you get it from? You certainly couldn’t have made it.”

“Yes, well,” said Maddy, “it’s not as if you can pick up rustic weaving skills when people are threatening to burn you at the stake, sorry. I’ll try harder next time.”

* * *

The first time it happened, Maddy didn’t even realise anything had changed. She’d felt an odd sort of tugging sensation and her ears popped, and things didn’t seem quite right when she looked back up, but she hadn’t really been paying attention. She’d been thinking about murder instead, an all too common feature of her life.

“Maybe,” Maddy had been saying into the phone, “it was the gym instructor all along? Second cousin to a PE teacher, if you ask me, and you can never trust a PE teacher.”

“We might actually need more evidence than that.”

“Well, I already checked his locker,” Maddy had said. “That’s not something I’m prepared to do again without danger money, thanks.” The phone had cut out, and when she tried again, all she got was an unearthly screech and a claim that Jonathan’s number didn’t exist, which was even more impossible than this week’s case (which involved a dead headmaster, a Victorian house with a grandfather clock bent on striking the wrong hour, and a dodgy gym instructor). 

She shoved the phone back into her bag and then carried on back to her last address but one to check for post. When she reached the top-floor flat, she knocked on the door, and as it opened, discovered, to her shock, not stray mail, but a stray male. 

“Forgot your keys again, did you?” said Kevin, an ex-boyfriend of hers. He did something in the city – she’d always zoned out a bit when he was explaining exactly what, but he always had cash for a meal out and that was what counted in a relationship. He’d walked out on her over three years ago. She’d always wondered why. She’d got back one day and found him gone without even so much as a goodbye note or a message on the answer machine. He certainly shouldn’t be hanging around her old flat.

“What?” Maddy said, screwing up her face. “I don’t even live here any more! God, Kevin, what d’you think you’re doing? You’ve got some nerve. Coming back here after what happened, using your key to get into some poor old lady’s flat! Get out; go! Don’t think I won’t call the police.” 

Kevin stopped, narrowed his gaze, and said, “Yes, I think I will, actually. Cheers, Maddy.” He marched off down the staircase and Maddy, never one to miss the opportunity of an open door, peered in round it in case there was any actual mail there as well.

Strangely, the new occupant (in fact a middle-aged teacher if Maddy recalled correctly) seemed to have arranged the place exactly as she used to – and there was a heap of letters and bills with her name on piled up on the hall table. She was tempted to go in further, but decided not to push her luck. Besides, Jonathan had promised to meet her at her current flat in about half an hour and she probably shouldn’t be late again, in case he went off home in a huff and solved the mystery without her. She glanced at her watch and realised that half an hour was now five minutes ago. 

“Oh, crap,” said Maddy, grabbing at the envelopes, before shoving them in her shoulder bag and heading off down the stairs at a run.

On the way home, the radio seemed to be playing some sort of nostalgia countdown from 1995, but she didn’t notice anything else out of the ordinary, not until she got back to her flat, walked in and found, not Jonathan, and thankfully not Kevin again, but some old guy who yelled loudly at her even as she screamed back at him.

“Oh, God,” said Maddy, as recognition dawned. It was Mr Jones, who’d died a few months ago, in time for her to rent this place and move out of her cockroach-ridden house. They’d taken a while to find him, so it had got into the press. It had put off more nervous applicants, and handily lowered the rent into her price range. Maddy was willing to live with the macabre, even if poor old Mr Jones hadn’t been able to. But she’d seen the pictures of him in the paper and this was definitely him.

Mr Jones, still conspicuously if impossibly not dead, lowered the rolled up newspaper he had instinctively grasped in self-defence. “Who are you? How d’you get the key? Give it back this instant!”

“I’m sorry,” said Maddy, “the estate agent gave it to me. There seems to have been some terrible mix up. I’m so sorry. I’ll just go.” She pocketed her key and backed out of the flat.

Outside, she stopped. She couldn’t be in 1995. She couldn’t have travelled in time. That was impossible. Also, it was a bit of a let down. If she was going to get sent back in time by some freak incident, it ought to be to some major event. As far as she was concerned, though, 1995 had just been, well, a year. It was like suddenly finding yourself on an all expenses paid day trip to Croydon.

What was more, if it was true, where could she go? If she went anywhere near her usual haunts, she ran the risk of meeting herself and she was sure that couldn’t end well. Even if the idea of confusing everybody she knew or committing the perfect crime, not to mention the ability to write twice as much as usual, was a temptation, she knew it wasn’t worth the risk. She was about the least reliable person she knew, anyway. Best to leave herself well alone. 

Worst of all, she hadn’t met Jonathan yet, and if she headed off to find him now, she might never actually meet him in 1997. She was pretty sure he’d take against a mad woman who accosted him in the middle of the night at his windmill claiming she’d travelled back in time from a future where they were solving gruesome, improbable murders together in between not actually dating except when maybe they were. It had been a hard enough sell the first time round.

“Shit,” said Maddy, when suddenly she felt that tug again, and the cars parked outside the flat all changed. Her phone rang and she jumped.

“Where are you?” said Jonathan, on the other end, when she recovered enough to answer it the phone. “I’ve been standing outside your door for ten minutes and if you’re not going to be here soon, I’m going home.”

Maddy smiled widely, relief making her almost dizzy. “Don’t worry. I’m here. Just outside, in fact. Keep your hair on.” She lowered the phone and, about to make her way upstairs, halted, her eyes widening. “Oh, God,” she said. Now she knew why Kevin had gone – _she’d told him to_. No wonder he hadn’t left a note. 

Another few steps further and she halted again as it occurred to her that she’d also stolen her own post. 

“Shit,” said Maddy again. Time travel was complicated, and she’d only been to 1995 and back. 

“How can a dead man answer a door?”

“What?” said Jonathan, not in the best of moods after waiting outside her place for nearly fifteen minutes. “Is this a riddle?”

Maddy bit into a Curly-Wurly. “A question. Say I came back to this flat and Mr Jones, the seriously deceased previous occupant was inside, exactly as pleased to see me as I was to see him. What possible explanation could there be for that? Leaving out fictional ones.”

“Did you recognise him or did he only say he was Mr Jones? If it was the latter, that would be your answer. Another passing burglar, I expect.”

“What if he’d also brought his own furniture and tidied the place up?”

Jonathan’s eyebrows twisted. “Is this a hypothetical question? Because it’s getting weirdly specific. Weird being the operative word.”

“It might not be.”

He sighed. “Then in that case, you got the wrong flat. Maybe the key worked in both locks. Sometimes it does, depending. Were you drunk?”

“Thank you, Jonathan!” Maddy dropped down into the sofa clutching a cushion, and heaved out a sigh. She’d finally managed to find a problem so out there that Jonathan would never be able to solve it – or not unless she could some how get him to believe in it.

So when it started happening again, she realised the only thing to do was to try and find a way to convince him.

It wasn’t easy.

* * *

Jonathan pored over a fragment of medieval vellum with a magnifying glass, and then drew back. Lately Maddy had started sending him what she claimed were messages from the past. The thing was, they were perfect in every detail, like that dress of hers the other week. Obviously, she must have bullied some unfortunate historian or forger or someone into helping her out, but he couldn’t fault any of them. It was getting unnerving.

Plus, even allowing for Maddy being, well, Maddy, where was the logic in it? On the other hand, if he decided the messages were genuine, where did that leave him? Time travel was impossible. Ergo, it had to be one of her scams. Trying to get one up on him was one of her general life goals, after all.

It was just, if it was all a con, it was a bloody good one.

“Look, come on,” he said, over the phone, “I give up. You win. Just tell me what it’s all about. It’s beginning to get annoying.”

“Yes, isn’t it?”

“I’ve admitted defeat. Isn’t that the point?”

There was a momentary silence on the other end. He had a worrying feeling it was an angry one.

“It hasn’t occurred to you, Mastermind Brain of the Millennium, that it might be me sending you an SOS from the past, because one of these times I’m not going to make it back and I’m going to need you to come after me?”

“To the past?” said Jonathan. “I create illusions, not actual magic.” And then, unwisely, but inevitably, “And I’ve never been on Mastermind.”

“What a shame. You’d be really good. Specialist subject: being a complete and total arse!”

Jonathan rolled his eyes but held his breath. At least she couldn’t see him.

“And don’t look at me like that, either!”

“I’m on the phone,” said Jonathan. “I’m not looking at you like anything. I’m looking at a poster of Maskelyne. Are you going to tell me what’s going on or what?”

She made an incoherent noise and hung up.

“Hello?” said Jonathan. “Hello?” He shrugged. Still, he’d admitted defeat, so she’d stop it now, wouldn’t she?

The next morning, a middle-aged blonde woman in a suit arrived with a letter. The envelope was made of unusually good quality paper, if slightly yellowed at the edges with age. He glanced at the stamp on it without great interest and then halted in shock. 

“It can’t be,” he said, holding it up to the light. “How –?”

The woman shrugged. “It was in our files – to be delivered on today’s date, 1999, to a Mr Jonathan Creek at this address. And since, when we checked, you did exist, we’ve carried out our former client’s wishes.” She glanced at him, as if trying to find something out of the usual in his appearance. “Perhaps you can explain how it’s been held in our archives since 1910 and yet is addressed to you?”

“Absolutely,” said Jonathan. “It’s an immoral and very devious practical joker. Bane of my life.”

The woman raised an eyebrow.

“My family’s lived in this mill for five generations,” said Jonathan, reaching for something more plausible. “There were probably some other Jonathans. Family name, you know how it is.”

Her expression cleared. “Ah. I suppose that might account for it. Still, it’s very odd, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Jonathan, retreating inside with the envelope. “It is,” he murmured, after the door was closed. “Very odd indeed.” Even allowing for the supposed solicitor at his door to be an actor, there was something that was almost impossible to explain away. It was practically impossible even if Maddy was telling the truth about time travel.

The stamp on the corner of the envelope was an Edward VII two penny Tyrian plum in pristine condition.

He opened up the letter. It was Maddy’s handwriting, even if written in blotchy ink instead of with a biro:

 _Dear Jonathan_ , it read. _I’m now in 1910. If you never hear from me again, tell Barry where I went and that he can have the royalties. If there are any. Oh, and tell him I’m sorry about the curry stains._

_And when you’ve done that, put that giant brain of yours in gear and GET ME OUT OF HERE! I can’t live in an era that’s this into corsets, and you don’t even want to know about the serious lack of plumbing._

_Yours, Maddy._

_P.S. I hope the attached proof is finally enough to convince you. I had to break into the nearest post office to get it once I worked out what the date was and nearly got picked up by the local bobby, and not in the good way._

“This is a genuine Edward VII 2d Tyrian Plum!”

“Is it?” said Maddy, biting into her toast with unconcern. “I found it lying about somewhere and stuck it on for a laugh.”

“Did you steal this from a collector? There are a handful in private ownership, but, well, barely even enough to properly be called a handful.”

Maddy lowered her half-eaten slice of toast. “I’ve told you how I’ve done it. I’ve sent you messages from every stinking time period I’ve visited. I’ve even started keeping a notebook full of things to look out for, the kinds of things you’d know, courtesy of the internet and my local library. Magicians, stamps, whatever. I can’t tell you how boring that was, but I was hoping it’d finally get through to you.”

“The things is, though, that you _can’t_ travel in time,” said Jonathan. “No one can. That would be actual magic. Not even science. I mean, technically science allows the possibility, but not like that. Not popping back and forth whenever you feel like it and nicking priceless stamps from people.”

“It wasn’t priceless where I found it,” said Maddy. “Just not being used and not quite closely guarded enough. And I _don’t_ feel like it. I keep nearly getting burned as a witch every time I land up in the Middle Ages.”

“I think you’ll find,” Jonathan said, “that the witch-hunting period in England was at its height in the seventeenth century, and far less common prior to that.”

Maddy took another bite out of her toast. “That’s not been my experience, I can tell you. Appear in the middle of a medieval village out of nowhere and it gets them every time. Sometimes it’s ducking stools, sometimes it’s stakes. I’m seriously unpopular in the mud and thatch era.”

“Been put in the scold’s bridle yet?”

Maddy finished the toast and put the plate down loudly. “I’m not going to answer that.” She repressed a shudder. She was trying to forget that particular incident. “It’s only because most of them don’t last longer than about a few hours to a day at most that I’m still alive. Jonathan! You got to help me.”

He drew in his breath.

“And I am not mad, thank you. Before you say it.”

“It’s just. It’s impossible,” said Jonathan. “And, let’s face it, it’s you. How am I supposed to believe it?”

“Oh, thanks!”

“Although, admittedly, your sense of direction is so poor that if anyone could take a right turn into the last century by accident, it would be you.”

* * *

_1863_

One minute, Maddy was in the queue at the supermarket, wondering whether or not she’d picked the right flavour of crisps – was she in a salt and vinegar or a cheese and onion sort of mood? – and the next she was in the middle of an ironmonger’s shop that looked as if it had come out of an old _Two Ronnies_ sketch and a bunch of people in Victorian gear were all staring at her.

“Hi,” said Maddy, giving a weak smile, and reached for the nearest item with her free hand, while still clutching a family pack of salt and vinegar crisps with the other. “Nice, um, pokers. How much are they?”

A woman ran out of the shop and one of the men in front of her crossed himself.

“Yes, all right,” said Maddy, “haven’t you ever seen anyone suddenly appear in front of you? I work with an illusionist, okay. It’s all done with mirrors.”

One of the men nodded knowledgeably and went back to eyeing up letter boxes. The man who had crossed himself continued to keep his distance, which Maddy thought was a bit rich coming from someone with the most terrifyingly epic facial hair she’d ever seen.

“If I was an agent of the devil,” Maddy said, “credit me with more sense than to pop up in an ironmonger’s. I mean, your average spawn of Satan would be looking for somewhere short on iron. D’you need me to pick up a horse shoe and prove it or something?”

The ironmonger, watching from his counter, merely frowned at her, and said, “Did you wish to make a purchase?”

Maddy looked around her wildly, and then gave him her best smile. “Oh, I don’t know. Have you got fork handles?”

* * *

_1999_

Jonathan had barely dropped off to sleep when he was woken by a racket downstairs that could only mean one thing. Either he’d got very large rats who’d taken up DIY with enthusiasm, or he’d been invaded by a certain person he knew only too well.

“What are you doing?” he said, walking down the stairs, blinking in the light, to find her sitting on the sofa, wrapped in a duvet with a family size pack of salt and vinegar crisps in her hands. “It’s quarter past twelve.”

Maddy ate a crisp. “I finally realised that there was only one way to make you believe me. I am staying right here with you until I vanish again. If I do it from under your nose, you’ll have to believe it’s true.”

“Well,” said Jonathan, his gaze straying to the three large folders on the shelf nearby on the subject of how to make people vanish. “It would be hard to argue away, I suppose. Depending. But, look, you can’t camp out down here.”

She beamed. “Oh, thank you, Jonathan. It’s really sweet of you to offer me the bed. Or,” and she shot him a sidelong look, “are we going to share? It would make more sense.”

“Why not?” said Jonathan, even though he could have written a list of the reasons. “Look, what _is_ all this about? Is something wrong?”

“You don’t think me re-enacting a Two Ronnies sketch in the middle of the nineteenth century is trouble enough?” said Maddy. “I’m not making it up, Jonathan! Either it’s real, which I swear it is, or I’ve really and truly lost every single last bloody marble I ever had, and I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

Jonathan felt a small pang of guilt. “It’s just so impossible,” he said helplessly. “Time travel.”

“Tell me about it,” said Maddy.

Halfway through the night, Jonathan woke again, equally suddenly, and with an irrational fear. _What if it was true?_ If so, the consequences of letting Maddy pop back in time on this very spot were too horrible to contemplate.

“Oh, my God,” he said. “Maddy. You’ve got to go now!”

She blinked and then turned, burrowing back into the bed. “’s too early.”

“Look, if there is even the smallest possibility of this being real, I can’t risk you meeting my ancestors.”

Maddy’s jaw dropped. “You what?” Wakefulness gradually caught up with her and she propped herself up on the pillows. “Jonathan. I can’t get you to believe me, not for love nor money, nor even a ridiculously rare stamp, and suddenly at the mere idea that I might meet your relatives, suddenly you think there might be something in it? What d’you think I’m going to _do_ to them?”

“I don’t know,” said Jonathan. “It’s you. Insult them, cause them to move out and me never to be born, shag them – anything’s a possibility! You are leaving right now!”

When he got back in the bed, he could hear her yelling outside: “Jonathan! You long-haired git! You –”

Silence.

Jonathan sat up cautiously, and went out onto the platform to look out, see if anything had happened to her, but she’d gone. Her car was there, and yet she’d vanished, mid-sentence.

What was more, something was tugging at the back of his mind, something from years and years ago. When it finally came to him, he stopped and paled.

“Oh my God.” That night, years ago, when he’d heard yelling –

It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t be.

He was almost, almost sure it had to be. If only the whole thing wasn’t so completely impossible.

When Maddy reappeared, after some hours, equally without warning or explanation, Jonathan ordered her to drive them over to her place, where he could keep her under observation and try to work out what was going on without any danger of her mucking up his family tree.

“If I’d known all I had to do to get you to believe me was to threaten your ancestors, I’d have done that sooner,” said Maddy. “Honestly, what d’you think I’d do?”

Jonathan glared.

“I haven’t altered the timeline once!” she protested. “I’ve checked. Anything that had an effect seems to have already happened, like Kevin.”

“Yes, well, it pays to be careful. The idea of you running amok in history is too hideous to bear thinking about.”

Maddy brought him a coffee. “I know. One of these days I’m not going to pop back in time before someone drowns me. Also there’s a serious lack of chocolate. When I’m facing execution as a witch, I’d like to be able to stress eat. And have easy access to a working lavatory.”

“Right,” said Jonathan. “Now, think back to the first time this happened. Was there anything out of the ordinary that you noticed in the day or so before that?”

Maddy shook her head. “No. I mean, other than our case. You know, with the clock and the dodgy gym instructor.”

“Which I solved, by the way, while you were distracted.”

“Ooh, give the boy a medal,” said Maddy. “Apologies if me being in the fifteenth century or whatever inconvenienced you. You’ll have to explain to me later. After you explain this to me right now.”

“Well, I haven’t got a clue, have I? You’re the one it’s been happening to. _If_ it’s real, which I’m not saying I believe yet.”

Maddy closed her eyes. “I’ve been through this myself. Day before: late up, toast and coffee at breakfast, usual mix of bills and weird letters from readers in the post. Went shopping. I mean, I suppose I did – but, no, I mean, it couldn’t be that.”

“Couldn’t be what?”

“Then lunch, after which I broke into Mr. Sessions’s locker at the gym and retrieved his sweaty squash outfit for yours truly. I still want compensation for that particularly scarring experience, thanks. That security guard managed to bruise my elbow when he kicked me out, too.”

“Somehow I doubt it was Sessions’s shorts that did it.”

“And then I was with you, going round that museum piece in Wisteria Avenue. God, just as well it didn’t happen there. Going by the photos on the wall, the previous occupants were a right bunch of horrors. Probably have poisoned me or come after me with an axe.”

Jonathan grimaced. “And then we both went to theatre after I got Adam’s SOS – no need to rehash that particular nightmare.”

“No,” said Maddy, although in other circumstances, she’d be happy to relive every detail of Adam Klaus getting chased off stage by an irate, elderly lion from every possible angle and in slow motion, like a considerably more entertaining edition of _Match of the Day_. “If it was anything we did together, we’d both be nipping back and forth in time every other day.”

Jonathan frowned at the wall opposite. “I’m not seeing any pattern. What was that bit you missed out again?”

“Well, when I was out, obviously _not_ looking for a present for anyone we know, I went into one of those kooky old shops. All that sort of olde worlde stuff for the tourist, and New Age tat. Thought maybe something genuine might have landed up in it. But, no, just junk. Which, I admit, might be an answer except for one thing.”

“What?”

“I didn’t buy anything. Could barely even breathe in the place. Went straight out again.”

“Great,” said Jonathan. “Well, working on the theory that it couldn’t exactly be anything else, how about we check it out tomorrow?”

Maddy got up, a thought having struck her. She pulled her coat off the hook and rifled around in her pockets, pulling out chocolate wrappers, used tissues and scraps of paper she’d used as to do lists – and deep in the bottom, a small round wooden object she couldn’t identify. She closed her fist around it. It felt warm to the touch.

She looked across at Jonathan, hesitating. But, honestly, actual magic items? His brain might explode, and she valued his brain a lot, and not merely for the book sales. It would be too cruel.

“One problem,” she said. “I tried that myself. Couldn’t find it again for love nor money.”

Jonathan rolled his eyes. “Why am I not surprised?”

“Hang on. Just got to nip to the loo. Be right back,” said Maddy, and headed off to the bathroom, the mystery item hidden in her hand. 

“Right,” she said to it, once she got it alone, and exactly where she wanted it, poised to fall into noxious oblivion, “let me tell you exactly you what I think of you.” 

She dropped it, then flushed the loo with vicious satisfaction, and washed her hands. “Take that,” she said, and marched away, victorious.

* * *

“No more travelling in time, eh?” said Jonathan, the next week. “You’ll have to tell me what that was all about one day, you know. You really had me convinced for a minute. I could have sworn – that day when you went off and hid outside the windmill – that your yelling was what woke me once, years ago.”

Maddy snuggled up to him on the sofa. “Mad, eh?” she said. “Except, you know, it was true and there’s something I’ve got to say.”

“What?”

“Well,” she said, and took a deep breath, “Jonathan, we’ve got to change the future.”

He blinked. “Why?”

“It’s too horrible to explain,” she said, moving in nearer. “But if you value, well, anything you value, you’d better work with me on this.”

Jonathan paused, as she tugged hopefully at his shirt collar and threw a persuasive glance up at him. “I thought you said last time it was like having sex with your favourite uncle. And we agreed that was something you should never, ever do.”

“Yes, but we were both tired that night and we did say we should try again. Just to be sure. Anyway, I think that we really, really should, right now. For the future and everything. Before it’s too late.”

“You didn’t actually need to go to all that trouble –”

“Oh, and one more thing,” said Maddy pulling back, the guilt of non-linear memories weighing on her. “If we can’t change things, then I suppose I’d better apologise now.”

“For what?”

“2019,” said Maddy.

* * *

_2019_

Jonathan walked downstairs, not bothering to switch on the light, knowing his way around the house, and heading for the kitchen. He couldn’t sleep and he could just about murder a cup of camomile tea.

On stepping into the kitchen and reaching for the light, he stopped in shock as a horribly familiar figure stepped forward out of the gloom.

If he’d got as far as making the tea, he’d have dropped the mug. She looked exactly as he remembered – which was completely impossible. 

“It’s me,” said Maddy. “The Ghost of Christmas Past, here to tell you about all the terrible mistakes you’ve made in your life, and probably some guff about how it’s not too late to fix it.”

“Oh my God,” he said. “I’m hallucinating.” Then he frowned. “What do you mean, Ghost of Christmas Past? It’s Easter!”


End file.
